I have a VERY clear memory of watching a documentary show on one of the
better cable TV channels (Discovery, History, TLC, etc..) about an incident
in the 70's or 80's where some form of pollution from a factory on a river
which emptied into a lake was carried by an unexpected current directly to
the water inlet of the municipal water plant elsewhere on the lake. I
believe it was Lake Michigan. The inlet was on the south end of a very large
lake and the river entered the lake on the west side, at an angle that more
or less pointed at the inlet. I can see the map and diagram clearly in my
head.

The water was NOT being tested for this specific form of pollution, and I
don't remember the exact chemical but I assume it must have been a heavy
metal. As I remember it, the way they discovered the problem was that the
children's school test scores suddenly took a dive. Testing of the kids
found traces of the pollutant and testing of there homes found the pollutant
in the water. That lead to testing of the source and eventual tracing of the
source to the outlet of the river.

The factory was operating as licensed because it was expected that the
pollution would mix and dissipate into the lake. The fact that this "river
in a lake" formed between the real rivers outlet and the drinking water
inlet was completely unexpected.

The documentary went on to great length about the measures taken at the
inlet water processing facility to better filter and check the water.

I remember this as clear as day.

However, many hours of searching on the net does not find any reference to
that incident. There are current concerns about pollution from a neighboring
state and issues with pollution making its way into the population who eat
fish caught in the lake, but not about the drinking water.

Has any one else seen that or remembered that or found a web site or book
that references that incident?

P.S. This was part of an ongoing interest I and my wife have on the issue of
water availability and quality. She keeps saying that water will be the next
gold. Here is the email I was composing when this dismembering issue arose:

"Because bottled water is considered to be a "food" regulation and testing
falls to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA currently requires
bottled water manufacturers to test their product for harmful contaminants
once a week. Municipal tap water is under the jurisdiction of the
Environmental Protection Agency.The EPA's testing requirements are much more
stringent for tap water, requiring water treatment plants to test for
contaminants several times a day. In terms of potential harm to people and
animals, unchecked bottled water could prove to be much more hazardous than
municipal tap water."

"the FDA regulates bottled water and the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) regulates tap water."

So far, I haven't been able to find anything about what the actual testing
requirements are for bottled water, but some of the statements on that site
are downright scary:

"...bottlers are responsible for ensuring that their bottled water can pass
the tests used by FDA in its own laboratories, should testing be performed
by the FDA." Yike! That implys that the FDA doesn't even DO regular testing
and simply trusts the bottler (a commercial concern) to manage it. Compare
the motivation of a bottled water company (turn a profit, period) with a
municipal water source (provide water for our tax paying residents) and you
might see the conflict of interest.

"...when the microbiological, physical, chemical or radiological quality of
bottled water is below that prescribed in the quality standard, the label of
the bottled water bottle must contain a statement of substandard quality,
such as "Contains Excessive Bromate," "Contains Excessive Bacteria," or
"Excessively Radioactive." So... they don't have to stop bottleing, they
just have to label it? Have you ever checked the fine print on your favorite
brand?

"Because FDA's experience over the years has shown that bottled water has a
good safety record, bottled water plants generally are assigned low priority
for inspection."

"samples of foreign bottled water products offered for entry into the U.S.
may be collected and tested to determine if they are in compliance with all
applicable U.S. laws and FDA regulations." As a fan of Fuji bottled water,
that one is REALLY spooky. Imported water is apparently not regularly
checked by anyone.

The recient admission by Aquifina that they use tap water as thier source,
may well be a good thing, rather than a bad because at least the water was
tested daily by the municipality before it went to the company where it was
(hopefully) tested once a week. Bottlers who actually use natural spring
water are hoping no one will notice if a bear shits in the stream or this
last rain fall deposited acid rain on the mountain top.

>> Your not mistaken, I saw it too!
>>
>
> It's nice to reduce the possibilities from "senility" to "shared
> hallucination" but I really wish I could find some reference to the event...
>
> ---
> James.
>
>
>

> You are not thinking of the 1993 Cryptosporidium problem in
> Milwaukee are you? Killed close to 100 persons, and make 400,000 sick?

No, I found that one on the net. This one didn't kill anyone, but it did
make them dumber over a period of time.

The incident is so horrible, so insidious and frightening that I think a lot
of people may have just not wanted to see it reported or recorded. It
literally affected the majority of the residents of that state if I remember
the documentary correctly. Imagine having an entire state full of residents
growing up a little behind the curve... Although I understand that with time
and possibly with treatment (I remember nothing of a treatment from the
documentary) the effect could be overcome.

> > You are not thinking of the 1993 Cryptosporidium problem in
> > Milwaukee are you? Killed close to 100 persons, and make 400,000 sick?
>
> No, I found that one on the net. This one didn't kill anyone, but it did
> make them dumber over a period of time.
>
> The incident is so horrible, so insidious and frightening that I think a lot
> of people may have just not wanted to see it reported or recorded. It
> literally affected the majority of the residents of that state if I remember
> the documentary correctly. Imagine having an entire state full of residents
> growing up a little behind the curve... Although I understand that with time
> and possibly with treatment (I remember nothing of a treatment from the
> documentary) the effect could be overcome.

Basically millions of groundwater wells were constructed by aid
organizations without any testing. Turns out groundwater in the area
naturally has high concentrations of arsenic in it from the bedrock in
the area.

> > Has any one else seen that or remembered that or found a
> web site or
> > book that references that incident?
>
> Love Canal ? (now there's a memorable name)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal

This is absolutely driving me nuts! I've been to the local library, searched
Discovery.com and TLC and the science channel and tried many, many different
keywords to search the internet via Google.

I can't find a thing about it.

Now, Thomas, if you hadn't said that you have also seen that documentary, I
would just have put it down to me loosing my mind, but mass hallucinations
are less likely.

Wouldn't you think such an incident would be well documented? Isn't that
something that a lot of people would be interested in hearing about? I mean,
the IQ of an entire state full of kids being lowered to the point that it
showed up in school tests because of some pollutant unexpectedly entering
the drinking water?

Any ideas on who I can contact that would be aware of the incident? And
willing to point me in the direction?

> Wouldn't you think such an incident would be well documented? Isn't that
> something that a lot of people would be interested in hearing about?

It probably depends a lot more on what people are interested in not making
this widely known :) These usually have a strong interest, whereas the
masses' interest in hearing about something like this is usually quite low.
And this is a process that's not simply additive WRT the involved interest.
Quite often the peaks determine the direction.

> I mean, the IQ of an entire state full of kids being lowered to the point
> that it showed up in school tests because of some pollutant unexpectedly
> entering the drinking water?

Doesn't sound like something many from there would want to talk about,
publish or even hear about, no?

> This is absolutely driving me nuts! I've been to the local library, searched
> Discovery.com and TLC and the science channel and tried many, many different
> keywords to search the internet via Google.
>
> I can't find a thing about it.

> has these as third and fourth hits
>
> <http://avonhistory.org/hist/lakes2.htm>
> <www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arch/9_14_96/food.htm>
>
> The second one above is more specific. Is this along the
> lines of what you're looking for?

Thank you, but no. Those are about a relatively small portion of the
population who were affected after eating fish from the lake. The
documentary Thomas and I saw was about a large portion of the state (all or
everyone in that part of the state) being affected by the drinking water.

According to this, in the Milwaukee incident there were 403,271 cases
and 58 deaths - about 50 deaths higher than expected for basline
Cryptosporidium deaths over the period. his was 1993-1994 and I know
you say that the documentary was 1970s (and I doubt that you have been
using Jinx's time machine) but that's 13 years and when things
happened can become remarkably jumbled in our memories sometimes. If
you have other reference points which definitely tie the period down
to "much earlier" then fine, but otherwise looking further at the
Milwaukee case could be useful.

However,
it is
important to realize that drinking water that is derived
from a fresh water source proximate to a port is also at
risk. Any break in the water purification system leaves the
population served by that source of water susceptible to
disease. The Milwaukee Experience, a massive
Cryptosporidium parvum outbreak in April 1993, provides
an important lesson.
It should be noted that this epidemic was not caused by
ballast water. Nevertheless it underlines the important
potential for the spread of waterborne diseases
everywhere, including in highly developed countries. In
essence, this epidemic affected 400,000 people,
hospitalized more than 4,000 and caused the deaths of
110, due to a fault in the water purification facility that
drew water directly from Lake Michigan to distribute to
the citizens of Milwaukee. The economic impact of this outbreak was
estimated at more than $54 million.

> >> > You are not thinking of the 1993 Cryptosporidium problem in
> >> > Milwaukee are you? Killed close to 100 persons, and make 400,000
> >> > sick?
>
> >> No, I found that one on the net. This one didn't kill
> anyone, but it
> >> did make them dumber over a period of time.
>
> This
>
> http://www.epa.gov/ncea/pdfs/frame/frame9A.pdf
>
> Table A-2-1 summarises ?all US major water borne drinking
> water disease outbreaks 1985 - 1994
>
>
> According to this, in the Milwaukee incident there were 403,271 cases
> and 58 deaths - about 50 deaths higher than expected for baseline
> Cryptosporidium deaths over the period. his was 1993-1994 and I know
> you say that the documentary was 1970s (and I doubt that you
> have been
> using Jinx's time machine) but that's 13 years and when things
> happened can become remarkably jumbled in our memories sometimes. If
> you have other reference points which definitely tie the period down
> to "much earlier" then fine, but otherwise looking further at the
> Milwaukee case could be useful.

Yes, it was certainly before '85. People were wearing cords and bell bottoms
with hair in mullets and 'fros. The other difference was that I'm sure no
one died, but they did see a reduced IQ.

The Cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee was a very interesting case. It
DID kill people but did NOT affect IQ. Most of those who died were people
with reduced immune response, and the rest recovered fully, but it is still
an interesting case.

The thing that interested me most about this "phantom" IQ plague from
drinking water incident that I can't pin down is how they found it: No one
was checking the water for the toxin. Not the municipality, not the EPA, or
the FDA. No watchdog groups. Some of the workers from the factory that was
dumping this stuff into the river (where it was expected it would disperse
and not present a threat) lived in the area where the water was
contaminated; they never thought to get the water tested? Think about that:
Imagine you work at a factory that is licensed to dump small amount of
mercury (I don't remember if that was the exact toxin) into a river that
flows to a lake where your drinking water is sourced. And you don't ever
bring in a sample of tap water from your house to test in the factory lab?
Or pay for a test at an outside lab? One could imagine some local lab worker
whose job it was to test water samples from other source perhaps sneaking in
a run of his own drinking water, but no... Not for years and years did
ANYONE look for toxins in the water.

The first indication were school test scores dropping across the board. THEN
they checked the homes and immediately found the toxin in the water.

This is an interesting effect: People don't want bad news SO MUCH that they
will fail to look for it even in obvious places.

I've seen this with the Megan's law listings. There are web sites where you
can check for sex offenders in your neighborhood.http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/ is the one for California. Not a single one of
my neighbors or friends have checked! One guy is on the way to the local
park, another lives with his back yard touching the park (and a "dog door"
in his back yard fence). And no one wants to know. Most get all down cast
and change the subject if you try to tell them.

> This is an interesting effect: People don't want bad news SO MUCH that they
> will fail to look for it even in obvious places.
>
> I've seen this with the Megan's law listings. There are web sites where you
> can check for sex offenders in your neighborhood.
> http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/ is the one for California. Not a single one of
> my neighbors or friends have checked! One guy is on the way to the local
> park, another lives with his back yard touching the park (and a "dog door"
> in his back yard fence). And no one wants to know. Most get all down cast
> and change the subject if you try to tell them.
>
> "What? Me worry?"

I read a similar story about a town in SoCal which is built on a
fairly rich vein
of a mineral which disperses asbestos fibers when disturbed. The EPA
came out and tested the air and literally said "We wouldn't live there."

The local government almost literally ran them out of town. Since then, the
prevailing opinion (I'm not kidding) has been "Why would the government let
us live here if it's not safe?" (ignoring the EPA reports) and "Nobody's sick,
so what's the big deal?" (ignoring the 30+ year latency of mesothelioma and
other asbestos related diseases).

Just wait- in 30 years this'll be Love Canal all over again...

Mike H.

PS- if interested, the town in question is El Dorado Hills. Here's the link:
www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/05/not_in_their_back_yard.html

> Imagine you work at a factory that is licensed to dump small amount of
> mercury (I don't remember if that was the exact toxin) into a river
> that
> flows to a lake where your drinking water is sourced. And you don't
> ever
> bring in a sample of tap water from your house to test in the
> factory lab?

If this was back in the 70s, you have to remember that "we" were a
lot less
environmentally concious back then. Not polluting the bay meant
filling your
beer cans with water (so they'd sink) before throwing them over the
side of
the fishing boat. Brunner was writing "The Sheep Look
Up" (Shudder.) Etc...

> ... And no one wants to know. Most get all down cast
> and change the subject if you try to tell them.

> "What? Me worry?"

That rings a bell with me in a quite different area.
You may not have too much trouble guessing which one.
It's frustrating in the extreme when otherwise apparently rational and
thinking people get all illogical and refuse to look at certain issues
head on when the facts, or lack of them, are there for all to see, or
not.

> Not polluting the bay meant filling your
> beer cans with water (so they'd sink) before throwing them over the
> side of the fishing boat.

AND the cans were steel (maybe a bit before that) so sinking the cans
probably did a fair job of disseminating the "pollutant" far and wide
with time. Which is the best, long term that we can hope for with any
pollutant. No matter what people may hopefully tell you about storage
in mine shafts and the like :-).